A journal dedicated to truth, freedom of speech and radical spiritual consciousness. Our mission is the liberation of men and women from oppression, violence and abuse of any kind, interpersonal, political, religious, economic, psychosexual. We believe as Fidel Castro said, "The weapon of today is not guns but consciousness."

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Peace in Syria: A Syrian Response to the UNAC Attack on Terry Burke

Say "Peace in Syria:" A Syrian Response to the UNAC Attack on Terry Burke

by Mohja Kahf

Mohja Kahf is Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Arkansas (mentioned by us for identification only)

Two wrongs don't make a right. Being against U.S. military intervention
in Syria is no excuse for supporting the brutal Assad regime.

Want to be for peace? Be for peace. Say, "Stop the killing in Syria." Say it to all parties.

Oppose bombing? Say, "Stop the bombing in Syria." Say it to Assad. Say
it to the rebels and to the Kurds. Say it to ISIS and the Nusra Front.
Say it to the U.S. Say it to the Russians and the Iranians. Say it to
the Saudis and the Turks. Say it to everyone responsible for bombings.
But don't exclude Assad when you say it. Don't exclude anyone. Stand
against all the killing in Syria, and you will have found a way to stand
for peace in Syria.

U.S. peace activist, be for peace. Say "break the starvation sieges in
Syria." Say it to Assad, who is the besieger of dozens of Syrian towns.
Say it to the rebels, who have besieged at least two towns. Say it to
anyone and everyone who is starving civilians in my country of origin.

Peace activist, do you know that the Syrian regime's constitution gives
police immunity and the president unchecked power? Do you know that
Syrians lived under martial law from 1963 to 2011, when it was replaced
by the same law with a new name? Do you know that Bashar and his ruling
elite plundered the country for over a decade with neoliberal "social
market reform" that lined their pockets and caused poverty to skyrocket?
Surely you cannot in good conscience go on junkets sponsored by Assad
and paid for by the sweat of the Syrian people, peace activist.

Do you know that in the spring and summer of 2011, hundreds of thousands
of Syrians marched peacefully in over 400 towns in Syria to demand the
release of prisoners of conscience, their sons and daughters? Peace
activist, at least support the release of all prisoners of conscience in
Syria, no matter who holds them. Surely, peace activist, you do not
defend authoritarianism, whether Assadist or Islamist.

Peace activist, do you understand that masses of Syrians protested in
those marches because they want the fall of this regime and their human
rights back, independently of any U.S. agenda? Do you know that Hama's
square was full of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who were nonviolent
and nonsectarian and loudly against the regime, week after week, through
July 2011? Call those hundreds of thousands of Syrians proxies of
imperialist agendas. Or deny their existence; maybe Syrians imagined it
all, those heady days, the hope, the camaraderie. But don't support a
dictator, peace activist.

Deny that Syrians chanted "the people want the fall of the regime" from
their hearts. Maybe, in your view, Syrians have no hearts. They have no
heads. They have no will. Maybe Syrian crowds can only have roared "the
people want the fall of the regime" because they are pawns in a war
started by the CIA. Perhaps all over Syria, in the villages, in the
cities, among Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, and Shia, anyone in
my country of origin who hates the authoritarian regime is an agent of
imperialism. Salamiya, a predominantly Ismailia Shia town, was among the
first to protest, led by women; deny those women, call them foreign
agitators all-but don't support Assad.

Deny the live ammunition Assad troops fired, killing hundreds of unarmed
protesters month after month throughout 2011, beginning with young
Husam Ayash in Dara on March 18, 2011. Deny the bombs Assad dropped from
helicopters on crowded civilian quarters for nearly a year before the
horrors of ISIS surfaced. Deny that barrel bombs are used by the regime
to kill civilians indiscriminately. Deny that the same Syrians who
protested Assad are also protesting ISIS, now squashed under two layers
of authoritarianism. Surely you stand against all authoritarianism,
peace activist.

Let actual Syrians with agency and voice be utterly absent from your
gaze, U.S. peace activist. Ignore the activism of four Syrian women,
including Catherine Altalli, a Christian Syrian, who organized the
peaceful march for the families of prisoners of conscience on March 16,
2011, only to witness those gathered get electrocuted and clubbed by
Assad's police. Ignore the minority women's activism which created
Syria's Stop the Killing movement that sought to restore nonviolent
protest throughout 2012. Ignore this part of our recent history and
transform all Syrian protesters into deluded proxies or silent victims
for your use, as you put on rallies in the U.S. saying displaying
Assad's picture and saying "Hands Off Syria" but not to the main killer
in Syria, not to all parties killing in Syria.

Deny my friend Tayseer Elkarim, who was one of the Syrians protesting.
He was 31 years old. He had just struggled to finish a medical degree.
He ran to his balcony in Damsacus. He heard the chant "the people want
the fall of the regime." He made the decision to join the marchers. He
ran into the crowd. He later treated wounded protesters in
secret-unarmed protesters wounded by Assad's brutal troops. He belongs
to the Syrian Nonviolence Movement, a group that Syrians formed inside
Syria which I later joined from diaspora as a Syrian-born woman who
holds U.S. citizenship.

Go ahead, deny that Tayseer was imprisoned by Assad from December 2011
to March 2012. Tayseer was tortured for four months. His teeth were
broken in torture. He was tortured for protesting. He was tortured for
treating wounded protesters. He later escaped from Syria. My American
dentist saw his teeth and gave him a free root canal. "Because I can see
what's been deliberately done to his teeth. He's been through enough."
Tayseer is not just a Syrian victim; Tayseer is a physician. Now he
treats patients in refugee camps. Meanwhile, U.S. activists go on
junkets arranged by Assad to come back and deny what Tayseer, and
thousands of other Syrians, have experienced.

Deny Tayseer's pain, then. Deny his broken teeth. Deny every broken
tooth of every Syrian tortured by Assad. Maybe it was all a sleight of
hand produced by those who want to prop the U.S. war machine. Accuse
Tayseer and his fellow protesters of feeding the U.S. war machine,
because that's what was on their minds, standing on their balconies in
Syria. Just don't support Assad.

Deny my fellow poet Khawla Dunia, journalist from an Alawite background,
who went out to protest with the first protesters. Deny the
testimonials she posted from under regime bombing. Deny that our beloved
Syrian television star Fadwa Suleiman, who is Alawite, marched and sang
with the protesters time and again, sending out her testimonial videos
from Homs' mass peaceful protests. Perhaps it was all an illusion
produced in a Qatari studio, the masses of Syrians of different sect
backgrounds who went out in civic unity against the regime, chanting
"Sunnis and Alawites, we all want freedom!"

Deny the existence of my first cousin, Hanan Lahham, longtime
nonviolence teacher. She led protest marchers in Daraya on25 April 2011.
Do you know that her small Damascus school teaching children by the
principles of nonviolence was closed by the regime for joining the
Dignity Strike of December 2011, a strike organized by the peace
activists of Syria in a collective called Freedom Days Syria?

Deny all the lived experiences of Syrians under a brutal police state,
and deny the vicious suppression of their peaceful protest movement of
2011, if you must. You can only do this if you stay far away from
Syrians-because all Syrians, whether for or against the Syrian protest
movement, at least know it happened. All Syrians see other Syrians in
their range of vision, but you don't seem to see or know any Syrians
close up, U.S. peace activist.

So, U.S. peace activist, stay in your viewpoint whose beginning and end
is a debate over militarism and imperialism in your own society. What we
say as Syrians only seems to confuse you, in your dogged focus on your
particular pro-war/anti-war debate, so don't notice that our unique
struggle does not simply fill a convenient slot in that debate. If we
disagree with your position in that debate, you think it means we must
want the opposite of what you want. We want for Syria: an end to the
killing by all parties and an end to authoritarianism of all kinds. That
takes creative thinking. We wish you would join us in creative
thinking. But you're adamant about not listening to Syrian peace
activists.

So don't listen to a single Syrian. Don't seek out Syrian peace
activists. We forgive you. Only, in your single-mindedness to be
anti-war, do not support Assad.

Peace activist? Be for peace. Say "stop the killing in Syria" to everyone. And then you will have found a way.

Syrian
poet, novelist, professor Mohja Kahf and poet Marvin X at the
University of Arkansas, Fayettevile where she teaches English and
Islamic literature. She considers Marvin X the father of Muslim American
literature.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Two Poems for Syria

by Marvin X and Mohja Kahf

Oh, Mohjahow much water can run from rivers to seahow much blood can soak the earththe guns of tyrants know no enda people awakened are bigger than bulletsthere is no sleep in their eyesno more stunted backs and fear of broken limbseven men, women and children are humble with sacrificethe old the young play their roleswith smiles they endure torture chamberswith laughs they submit to rape and mutilationsthere is no victory for oppressorswhose days are numberedas the clock ticks as the sun riseslet the people continue til victorysurely they smell it on their handstaste it on lipsbelieve it in their heartsknow it in their mindsno more backwardness no fearlet there be resistance til victory.--Marvin X/El Muhajir

Syrian poet/professor Dr. Mohja Kahf

Oh Marvin, how much blood can soak the earth?

The angels asked, “will you create a species who will shed blood

and overrun the earth with evil?”

And it turns out “rivers of blood” is no metaphor:

see the stones of narrow alleys in Duma

shiny with blood hissing from humans? Dark

and dazzling, it keeps pouring and pumping

from the inexhaustible soft flesh of Syrians,

and neither regime cluster bombs from the air,

nor rebel car bombs on the ground,

ask them their names before they die.

They are mowed down like wheat harvested by machine,

and every stalk has seven ears, and every ear a hundred grains.

They bleed like irrigation canals into the earth.

Even one little girl in Idlib with a carotid artery cut

becomes a river of blood. Who knew she could be a river

running all the way over the ocean, to you,

draining me of my heart? And God said to the angels,

“I know what you know not.” But right now,

the angels seem right. Cut the coyness, God;

learn the names of all the Syrians.

See what your species has done.

--Mohja Kahf

Marvin X on Sectarianism

Marvin X

Black Arts Movement poet

photo

Gene Hazzard

Sectarianism has been known to spark
religious violence throughout history. For many years we
saw the ugly head of sectarianism in the struggle
between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, the
constant bombings and killings.

In Africa violence between Muslims
and Christians in Nigeria has approached genocide. Iraq
is the latest hot spot of sectarian violence between
Sunni and Shia Muslims. For decades the Shia had been
oppressed by the Sunni minority, especially during the
regime of Saddam Hussein. When he was overthrown by the
US and the Shia majority took political power, naturally
the Sunnis were resentful, no one likes to lose power and
privilege. Because many Sunnis look upon Shia as
heretics, this justifies their sectarian cleansing, even
though there has been Sunni/Shia harmony, including
marriages throughout the years, but presently there is
migration of Shias from Sunni neighborhoods and towns
and visa versa. Very little of the refugee plight has
made news.

Of course the US is the cause when
she installed the Shia majority, even though majority
should rule, we are taught in American Democracy 101.
But the resulting violence was predictable and much of
it could have been prevented if the Americans had not
been the "peacemakers."

Now the violence is being instigated
by the insurgents who are directing their wrath against
the Shia as well as the Americans. And naturally the
Shia are taking revenge since they have political and
military power, including their own militias integrated
into the army and police but loyal to their sect leaders
and imams.

We must see the Sunni violence
against the Shia in the broader picture of regional
politics. The Sunni regimes in Saudia Arabia, Egypt,
Jordan, Sudan, the Gulf States and elsewhere have no
desire to see a Shia government in Iraq, however loosely
allied it may be with Shia Iran. The Sunni governments
have stated their opposition to a Shia expansion from
the Tigris/Euphrates to the Mediterranean, uniting with
the populations of Shia in Syria and Lebanon where the
Hezbollah fighters are a political and military force
supported by Iran.

Have no doubt that the regional Sunni
regimes support the insurgency in Iraq. These regimes
would rather have their young men leaving their nations
to commit suicide in Iraq rather than be part of the
opposition within their authoritarian regimes. Better
their sons fight the infidel Americans and heretic Shia.

Of course the historical dispute
between the Sunni and Shia began in 632AD upon the death
of prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Thus this Sunni/Shia
conflict is much more outstanding than colonialism,
including the neo-colonial Americans. There is no hatred
like religious hatred. We can see that violence between
Sunnis and Shia has surpassed that between Sunnis and
the Christian Americans, supposedly the enemy of all
Muslims. For sure, Americans were the catalyst, but the
roots of the present sectarian violence began over
succession to the prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The Sunnis said the successor should
be selected from among the people, Abu Bakr. The Shia
said it should be from the prophet's bloodline, Ali. The
Sunnis won out and labeled the Shia heretics, especially
when they elevated the status of Imam Ali and future
Shia Imams to the level of the Caliphs or rulers after
the prophet, including veneration of their tombs in
various Shia holy cities such as Qum in Iran, Najaf and
Karbala in Iraq. Several Shia imams were assassinated,
including Ali and Hussein.

There are major Shia rituals that
celebrate the martyrdom of their imams. The Shia feeling of lost is similar
to the feeling of lost among Sunni Muslims in America
about Malcolm X allegedly being assassinated by the
Nation of Islam. This feeling of lost is shared by
much of the African American community.

Malcolm's death caused a great
division that has yet to heal and may never heal,
despite the unifying efforts of Farakhan with his
Million Man Marches and other efforts.

Perhaps we can understand the Sunni/Shia
struggle from this perspective. There are some Blacks
who hate other Blacks as a result of the Malcolm X
affair more than they hate the white man for all his
centuries of evil and wickedness against Blacks. For the
US government's role in the Malcolm affair—and
have no doubt about their involvement, they benefited by
divide and conquer, that classic Willie Lynch slave
master tricknology.

Sectarian violence in Iraq may
continue unabated, for it is beyond civil war, beyond
American occupation, but deeply rooted in religiosity,
myth and ritual. Even Sunni fear of Shia regional
expansion is rooted in Shia eschatology or end time.
This is evident in pronouncements from the Shia regime
in Iran, boldly determined to pursue a nuclear weapons
future and calling for the destruction of Israel,
motivated by their belief the time has arrived for Shia
geo-political and spiritual domination, and certainly
Iraq will play a role in this Shia myth-ritual drama.

This drama has implications far
beyond any American notion of installing democracy in
Iraq or anywhere else in the region, for people are
motivated by mythology and prophecy, political
aspirations being secondary. It is their spiritual
aspirations that are primary. Shia Iran appears prepared
to commit mass suicide challenging the Americans and
Europeans over nuclear technology, even though the
Iranians have every right to posses the Islamic bomb,
just as we have the Jewish bomb and the Christian bomb.
I say get rid of all the nuclear weapons or level the
playing field as in the wild wild west: let everybody
pack.

As per Iraq, it doesn't matter
whether the Americans stay or go, they have opened
Pandora's box and mean spirits are blowing in the desert
winds. Only Allah knows how these issues will be
resolved. Perhaps the Sunnis and Shias shall fight until
they tire of killing, then reconcile in the manner of
Isaiah, "Let us reason together."

Marvin X has given permission to
Harvard University to publish his poem "For El Haji
Rasul Taifa" from Love and War: Poems by Marvin X
(1995). The poem will appear in The Encyclopedia of
Islam in America Volume II, Greenwood Press, edited
by Dr. Jocelyne Cesari of Harvard's Islam in the West
Program. Mr. X is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology
Muslim American Literature, University of
Arkansas Press, edited by Dr. Mojah Khaf. He is also in
the forthcoming Muslim American Drama, Temple
University.

About Me

Truth will not make you rich, but it will make you free.--Francis Bacon

Marvin has been ignored and silenced,like Malcolm would be ignored and silenced if he had lived on into the Now. He's one of the most extraordinary, exciting black intellectuals living today --Rudolph Lewis, Chickenbones.